(C) False attribution of quotes and manipulation of evidence: the Goebbels diary entry of 30 March 1942

1. Irving claims24 that Goebbels did not inform Hitler of the murderous activities taking place in Auschwitz and Treblinka when he met him on 29 March 1942. In order to support this claim, the account in Hitler's War of the Goebbels diary entry on 27 March 1942 is extremely selective. It is also clear from Goebbels's diary entry for 30 March 1942, which recorded the events of the previous day, that the propaganda minister did not meet Hitler on the 29 March 1942.25 Hitler's remark ('The Jews must get out of Europe. If need be, we must resort to the most brutal methods') was made on 19 March 1942, as recorded in Goebbels's diary on 20 March 1942, and cannot therefore be used, as Irving uses it, as evidence that Goebbels 'held his tongue when he met Hitler' after writing his 'frank summary' of the 'ghastly secrets' of the extermination camps on 27 March. Nor does Irving publish the complete passage from Goebbels diary entry of 20 March. Goebbels recorded: 'We speak in conclusion about the Jewish question. Here the Führer remains, now as before, unrelenting. The Jews must get out of Europe, if necessary, with the application of the most brutal means.'26 Thus Irving in 1977 omits Goebbels's characterisation of Hitler's stance as 'unrelenting', an ommission he repeated in the 1991 edition of Hitler's War.27